All quotes by author Jonathan Safran Foer
"I felt suddenly shy. I was not used to shy. I was used to shame. Shyness is when you turn your head away from something you want. Shame is when you turn your head away from something you do not want."
--'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close'
"You can see the most beautiful things from the observation deck of the Empire State Building. I read somewhere that people on the street are supposed to look like ants, but that's not true. They look like little people. And the cars look like little cars. And even the buildings look little. It's like New York is a miniature replica of New York, which is nice, because you can see what it's really like, instead of how it feels when you're in the middle of it."
"Everything is the way it is because everything was the way it was. Sometimes I feel ensnared in this, as if no matter what I do, what will come has already been fixed."
--'Everything is Illuminated'
"The more you love someone, he came to think, the harder it is to tell them. It surprised him that strangers didn't stop each other on the street to say I love you."
--'Everything is Illuminated'
"In the end, everyone loses everyone. There was no invention to get around that, and so I felt, that night, like the turtle that everything else in the universe was on top of."
-'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close'
"'Even if I don't like what I am, I know what I am. My children like what they are, but they don't know what they are. So tell me which is worse.'"
--'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close'
"I thought about all of the things that everyone ever says to each other, and how everyone is going to die, whether it's in a millisecond, or days, or months, or 76.5 years, if you were just born. Everything that's born has to die, which means our lives are like skyscrapers. The smoke rises at different speeds, but they're all on fire, and we're all trapped."
--'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close'
"Memory was supposed to fill the time, but it made time a hole to be filled. Each second was two hundred yards, to be walked, crawled. You couldn't see the next hour, it was so far in the distance. Tomorrow was over the horizon, and would take an entire day to reach."
--'Everything is Illuminated'
"I read the first chapter of A Brief History of Time when Dad was still alive, and I got incredibly heavy boots about how relatively insignificant life is, and how, compared to the universe and compared to time, it didn't even matter if I existed at all."
--'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close'
"'It's so hard to express yourself.'
'I understand this.'
'I want to express myself.'
'The same is true for me.'
'I'm looking for my voice.'
'It's in your mouth.'
'I want to do something I'm not ashamed of.'
'Something you are proud of, yes?'
'Not even. I just don't want to be ashamed.'"
--'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close'
"I hope that one day you will have the experience of doing something you do not understand for someone you love."
--'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close'
"We need enormous pockets, pockets big enough for our families and our friends, and even the people who aren't on our lists, people we've never met but still want to protect. We need pockets for boroughs and for cities, a pocket that could hold the universe."
--'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close'
"Why are you leaving me? He wrote, I do not know how to live. I do not know either but I am trying. I do not know how to try. There were some things I wanted to tell him. But I knew they would hurt him. So I buried them and let them hurt me."
"The bruises go away, and so does how you hate, and so does the feeling that everything you receive from life is something you have earned."
"'I feel too much. That's what's going on.'
'Do you think one can feel too much? Or just feel in the wrong ways?'
'My insides don't match up with my outsides.'
'Do anyone's insides and outsides match up?'
'I don't know. I'm only me.'
'Maybe that's what a person's personality is:
the difference between the inside and outside.'
'But it's worse for me.'
'I wonder if everyone thinks it's worse for him.'
'Probably. But it really is worse for me.'"
--'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close'
"I felt suddenly shy. I was not used to shy. I was used to shame. Shyness is when you turn your head away from something you want. Shame is when you turn your head away from something you do not want."
--'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close'
"You can see the most beautiful things from the observation deck of the Empire State Building. I read somewhere that people on the street are supposed to look like ants, but that's not true. They look like little people. And the cars look like little cars. And even the buildings look little. It's like New York is a miniature replica of New York, which is nice, because you can see what it's really like, instead of how it feels when you're in the middle of it."
"Everything is the way it is because everything was the way it was. Sometimes I feel ensnared in this, as if no matter what I do, what will come has already been fixed."
--'Everything is Illuminated'
"The more you love someone, he came to think, the harder it is to tell them. It surprised him that strangers didn't stop each other on the street to say I love you."
--'Everything is Illuminated'
"In the end, everyone loses everyone. There was no invention to get around that, and so I felt, that night, like the turtle that everything else in the universe was on top of."
-'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close'
"'Even if I don't like what I am, I know what I am. My children like what they are, but they don't know what they are. So tell me which is worse.'"
--'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close'
"I thought about all of the things that everyone ever says to each other, and how everyone is going to die, whether it's in a millisecond, or days, or months, or 76.5 years, if you were just born. Everything that's born has to die, which means our lives are like skyscrapers. The smoke rises at different speeds, but they're all on fire, and we're all trapped."
--'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close'
"Memory was supposed to fill the time, but it made time a hole to be filled. Each second was two hundred yards, to be walked, crawled. You couldn't see the next hour, it was so far in the distance. Tomorrow was over the horizon, and would take an entire day to reach."
--'Everything is Illuminated'
"I read the first chapter of A Brief History of Time when Dad was still alive, and I got incredibly heavy boots about how relatively insignificant life is, and how, compared to the universe and compared to time, it didn't even matter if I existed at all."
--'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close'
"'It's so hard to express yourself.'
'I understand this.'
'I want to express myself.'
'The same is true for me.'
'I'm looking for my voice.'
'It's in your mouth.'
'I want to do something I'm not ashamed of.'
'Something you are proud of, yes?'
'Not even. I just don't want to be ashamed.'"
--'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close'
"I hope that one day you will have the experience of doing something you do not understand for someone you love."
--'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close'
"We need enormous pockets, pockets big enough for our families and our friends, and even the people who aren't on our lists, people we've never met but still want to protect. We need pockets for boroughs and for cities, a pocket that could hold the universe."
--'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close'
"Why are you leaving me? He wrote, I do not know how to live. I do not know either but I am trying. I do not know how to try. There were some things I wanted to tell him. But I knew they would hurt him. So I buried them and let them hurt me."
"The bruises go away, and so does how you hate, and so does the feeling that everything you receive from life is something you have earned."
"'I feel too much. That's what's going on.'
'Do you think one can feel too much? Or just feel in the wrong ways?'
'My insides don't match up with my outsides.'
'Do anyone's insides and outsides match up?'
'I don't know. I'm only me.'
'Maybe that's what a person's personality is:
the difference between the inside and outside.'
'But it's worse for me.'
'I wonder if everyone thinks it's worse for him.'
'Probably. But it really is worse for me.'"
--'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close'
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